


Never Call Me When I'm Busy

by Ebenbild



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Clint Barton is William Brandt, Gen, Humor, Phone Calls, Sarcasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7875838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebenbild/pseuds/Ebenbild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Alright! Alright! I’ll tell you everything! Just stop! Please stop!” The man pleaded with Clint in Ukrainian and Clint stopped his work to look at the man with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“What the hell are you doing right now, Brandt?” Ethan’s voice could be heard from the phone.</p><p>“Nothing much,” Clint answered, eying his prey with a predatory smile. “Just cleaning up some mess someone made in the office.”</p><p>There was another second of silence on the phone, then Ethan’s voice could be heard again.</p><p>“That didn’t sound like cleaning something up –“</p><p>“Well, I might also be teaching the culprit a lesson or two,” Clint answered. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not as if I’m currently torturing someone...”</p><p> </p><p>Or: Five times Ethan calls Brandt to help him with a mission and one time someone else decides to do the same. Clint Barton/Hawkeye is William Brandt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Call Me When I'm Busy

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sadly all Marvel’s and not mine. If I had done the movies, Clint would have been the star from the start.
> 
> Placing: Before the movies.
> 
> Warning: I have no idea about the comic’s, and just know some tit-bits from gossip and wikipedia, so this is mainly based on the first Avenger’s movie and the M:I movies. Happens between M:I Ghost Protocols and Rogue Nation. Spoilers for both (especially Rogue Nation!)
> 
> Just an idea I had, nothing more.
> 
> Five times Ethan calls Brandt to help him with a mission and one time someone else decides to do the same. Clint Barton/Hawkeye is William Brandt.

 

sSsSsSsSs

**_NEVER CALL ME WHEN I’M BUSY_ **

sSs

I.

The first call Clint got happened about a week and a half after the end of his latest cover mission – or at least what should have been the end of it.

Clint was already in the middle of a new mission somewhere in the Ukraine. He was currently kindly extracting information from his current target.

“You know, my friend, we can do it one way – or the other,” he said in Ukrainian in one of his kindest voices, in his hands a slightly rusty bar clamp, turning it ever so slowly between his fingers. “Of course, my preferred way might not be exactly yours, but if you want to I’m definitely up to finding out if you will enjoy it as much as I will.”

The man in front of him gulped visibly, but his mouth stayed stubbornly shut.

Clint grinned.

And that was the moment his phone rung.

Clint frowned at that, before absentmindedly applying the bar clamp on the man’s fingers until it started to crush his target’s thumbs, while at the same time answering the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Brandt,” Ethan Hunt’s voice could be heard at the other end of the line. “We’ve got a mission.”

Clint frowned at that.

“I know that you and the other two have been asked to go on another mission,” he finally said in English, while at the same time watching his target’s face which started to show the pain the man was feeling. “I don’t remember signing myself on that mission.”

There was a short moment of silence on the other side of the phone, then Ethan repeated Clint’s words.

“Signing yourself on the mission?” He asked, and Clint rolled his eyes.

“The Secretary’s dead, as you well know, Ethan,” he said in a way of answering the question. “At the moment, there aren’t a lot of people who can assign missions. Since I am the Chief Analyst, I am one of them.”

In that moment, Clint’s target started to howl with pain.

“Alright! Alright! I’ll tell you everything! Just stop! Please stop!” The man pleaded with Clint in Ukrainian and Clint stopped his work to look at the man with a raised eyebrow.

“What the hell are you doing right now, Brandt?” Ethan’s voice could be heard from the phone.

“Nothing much,” Clint answered, eying his prey with a predatory smile. “Just cleaning up some mess someone made in the office.”

There was another second of silence on the phone, then Ethan’s voice could be heard again.

“That didn’t sound like cleaning something up –“

“Well, I might also be teaching the culprit a lesson or two,” Clint answered. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not as if I’m currently torturing someone.”

Ethan snorted at that.

“I don’t think you have it in you to torture anyone, Brandt,” he said amused before returning to their previous talk. “Anyway, even if you’re not assigned and have a lot to do – coordinating and whatever you do as long as there’s no new Secretary – we would really appreciate your help. You coming?”

Clint looked at the crying man in front of him. Then he shrugged mentally.

“Whatever,” he said.

“Good,” Ethan said, grinning. “See you tomorrow at Egypt. Be there!”

And with that, he ended the phone call. Clint snapped his phone shut and then turned back to the man in front of him.

“Alright, I’m booked tomorrow. Seems as if we’ll have the rest of the afternoon to chat amiable…”

Two hours later, Clint left the warehouse he had been in, phone in his hands again.

Behind him, the warehouse with the dead target in it went up in flames when the gas tanks in it started to explode.

“Alright, Boss, I have the data,” he said the moment someone picked up the phone. “I mail them and then I’m off to Egypt.”

“Egypt?” Phil Coulson asked.

“Ethan called. It seems he can’t handle a simple IMF mission without me around,” Clint answered grinning. “Barton out. I’ll see you in a few weeks, Phil!”

Phil Coulson just snorted.

“I thought you ended that undercover mission, Hawkeye,” he said.

Clint shrugged and then added – since Coulson couldn’t see him, “I’ve been off and on the IMF for the last five years. I thought it stupid to kill of Brandt now when IMF again is heading for trouble.”

“Still, I thought that IMF was solely deskwork at this point of time. Didn’t you quit being a Field Agent some years ago?”

“Well, that was before my stint back into the field with Ethan Hunt’s team about two weeks ago,” Clint answered dryly. “Ethan also didn’t take a ‘no’ for an answer when I tried to refuse my return to the field. Even the excuse of his wife’s death didn’t fathom him. He even told me that she was still alive!”

Phil stayed silent for a second, before remarking dryly, “you knew she was alive way before that.”

“Well, yeah – but Ethan didn’t know. I just thought that the excuse would be valid and that he wouldn’t endanger his wife by telling me the truth –“

“And yet he did.”

Clint snorted at that.

“Yeah,” he said. “And now I’m back to the field.”

Phil laughed at that.

“As if you truly ever left it in the first place!”

“In IMF’s field – not SHIELD's!”

“I understood that much, Hawkeye,” the handler replied grinning. “Alright, I get it. Have fun playing Agent Brandt again, Hawkeye!” And with that, he ended the phone call.

xXxXxXxXxXx

II.

The second time Ethan called, Clint had been on a stake-out for forty-eight hours already. He was currently watching his target from afar, his bow at the ready; just waiting for the right moment.

That, of course, was the moment his cell phone rang.

Clint mentally rolled his eyes and answered it with his comm. unit.

“Yeah?”

“Ethan here,” the person at the other end of the line said. “Brandt, I know you’re busy with trying to keep IMF running without the Secretary and all that shit – but we really need an extraction team right now and nobody else is picking up.”

Clint blinked at that.

“What do you mean ‘nobody else is picking up’?” He repeated in disbelieve.

“Exactly what I said,” Ethan answered dryly. “Now, the team?”

Clint eyes rested on his target. There was no way he could shoot him right now and then start working on Ethan’s extraction.

“Brandt?”

“Still there,” Clint replied. “Alright. Give me a minute. I’m currently not at the base.”

That was answered by a sputter from Ethan.

“What do you mean ‘You’re not at the base’? I thought you had to be present there and couldn’t come to the mission because of that!”

“Ethan! The CIA is currently working on getting us to get shut down! Don’t you think I have other places to be than the base to stop that?” Clint huffed.

His target moved.

His target’s ex-wife and ten year old son waved at the man and then left the house.

Maybe Clint was lucky and he could shoot that man soon. He had been crouching on the rooftop for over two days now and the rain currently purring down upon him didn’t help at all. He was cold, wet and tired – and he had to extract an IMF team that always got into more trouble than even he and Natasha on their best days – oh, well, maybe not, but anyway!

Into that part of his musings, Ethan butted in.

“Alright, I get that. Now, the extraction?”

“Like I said, give me some minutes. I’ll call you back.”

“Thanks man,” and with that the line went dead and Clint pulled out his phone to dial another number, all the while hoping that his target wouldn’t move into the perfect position until he was done dialing.

The target didn’t.

_Good target._

“Impossible Mission Forces, Agent Agerton speaking,” a female voice could be heard over the secure line of his phone. He had the call back on his comm. unit and the arrow back on the bow.

“Ms. Agerton,” Clint greeted her coolly. “Any reason why you refused to take a call of one of our teams?”

There was a startled cough on the other end of the line, then the woman shifted nervously on her seat.

“Agent Brandt, sir!” She said. “Er… we…”

“You have ten seconds to explain yourselves to me, Agerton,” Clint growled. “Nine… eight…”

“There was some trouble here, sir!” The woman explained hurriedly. “Someone of the rookies analyzed some data wrongly and we had to act fast to stop the team, he had been sending it to, to step into a trap. It was chaos and we –“

“And you should have been able to handle that while still picking up the phone and send an extraction team for another team!” Clint interrupted her while watching his target vanishing into the bathroom. “Instead of that you all started to act like rookies and I had to be called by the team-leader of the team that needs extraction. You all know that I’m busy enough as it is – do you truly want me to come into the office instead of sleeping? We all know I can be a monster without enough sleep – do you truly want to risk that?”

“No, sir!” The woman answered hastily. “I’ll get the office back to work immediately.”

Clint grinned mentally at that. It seemed as if they still remembered his mood from two years ago when he had had to come to the office after a sleepless week just because some rooky had brought down their servers. After that day his coworkers had all started to monitor his sleeping patterns – as far as they could, that is – just to be sure that it would never happen again.

“Good,” Clint growled. “Then send an extraction team to Ethan Hunt’s team immediately, Agerton.”

“I… it will be there; two hours max, sir!” the woman promised and Clint ended the phone call. His target was still in the bathroom so Clint guessed that he might have time to dial Ethan’s number.

He had.

Barely.

The moment Ethan picked up the phone, Clint’s target left the bathroom.

“Hunt here,” Ethan said.

“Hold on a minute,” Clint answered and then knocked the arrow. The target slowly came into view.

“Brandt?” Ethan said, but Clint ignored him.

He evened out his breathing, instead.

“Brandt?”

Two seconds.

One.

Clint shot.

There was the sound of the string and then the sound of the arrow flying through the air, hitting the window, breaking it and imbedding it into the man behind it.

Clint released the tight hold on his breathing.

“Brandt?!” Ethan sounded alarmed now, and Clint mentally rolled his eyes.

“Sorry, had to concentrate right now,” Clint said. “Alright. You’re getting extracted in two hours max. Copy that?”

“Concentrating? You were concentrating?! What the Hell are you doing right now?!” Ethan asked perplex.

Clint rolled his eyes, and then jumped from his perch onto the next rooftop.

“I’m jumping from rooftops, Ethan,” he said, while already aiming for the next one.

Ethan snorted.

“Very funny, Brandt. You’re afraid of heights!”

Clint grinned at that.

“No, but I don’t trust Benji’s tech,” he answered lightly.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Ethan said.

“Sorry, Ethan, have to end the call now,” Clint said when a familiar quintjet came into view. “You know, things to do, worlds to safe…”

“Sure thing, just tell yourself that while we do the real work and you’re babysitting rookies all day!” he quipped and Clint laughed.

“Whatever you say, Hunt, whatever you say!” And with that he ended the call and made sure to catch his own extraction.

xXxXxXxXxXx

III.

The next time, Ethan called, Clint was actually quite bored and even might have been slightly relieved to find something to do.

Unfortunately, the rest of the agents around him didn’t think quite the same.

“The next part of our meeting about sexual harassment today will be –“

In that moment, Clint’s phone rung. Every agent in the room turned towards him.

Clint suppressed a grin.

“I’m sorry, I have to take that call,” he said smirking before answering his phone.

“Yeah?” He could literally see the furious stare of the lecturer in the front. His smirk deepened.

“Brandt, Ethan here,” Ethan Hunt greeted him. “Do you have time right now or are you currently in an important meeting to rescue IMF?”

Clint’s grin deepened even further.

“Don’t worry about it, Ethan,” he said. “I’m not doing anything important right now –“

The lecturer started to scowl at that and Clint sent him an innocent smile full of teeth.

“That’s – good, I guess,” Ethan said, clearly hearing the smirk in Clint’s voice. “But somehow I’m getting the feeling I should call somebody else in the base…”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it,” Clint answered, still grinning. “I’m just not allowed to leave the room I am currently in, so it will depend on what you need me for if I can help you or not –“

“Why can’t you leave the room?” Ethan asked, and this time Clint could hear the frown Ethan’s face was suddenly spotting.

“Let’s just say that – I’m monitoring some… misbehaving… rookies right now,” Clint answered and the lecturer’s eyebrows shot up at that. Other agents started to snicker – they were the senior ones in the room. Again others looked right out outraged at Clint’s answer – those were the rest in the room.

“Ah… alright,” Ethan said. “You got some time to look at some data for me and tell me what you see?”

“Sure,” Clint said, shark-like grin still displayed in his face. “Just send them over. I’ll look at them while watching the rookies play with their new tools…”

At that Ethan laughed.

“Sure thing, Brandt!” He said. “As if you’re truly watching rookies right now! But, alright, whatever you’re doing just continue with it! I won’t ask again what you’re actually up to!”

And with that Ethan ended the phone call.

The other agents still stared at Clint.

Clint smirked at the lecturer.

“Sorry, man,” he said. “But I had to take this call. It was incredible important for my work. You may continue now.”

At that, Phil Coulson who was sitting in the first row and currently turned to face Clint, rolled his eyes fondly and turned back around to face the lecturer. Nick Fury next to him snorted and did the same, the other agents one after another following their example.

Clint took that as his cue to pull out a data-pat and call up his mails.

Ethan had mailed him the stuff he should look through.

Clint grinned.

This was definitely better than sitting there and listening to that damn awfully dreadful lecture any longer.

He could still feel the lecturer’s eyes on him sometimes, but mostly the lecturer just continued to show his presentation while Clint read the material on his data-pat.

At the end of the lecture, Clint had finished his analysis and send it to Ethan.

The lecturer was waiting for him at the door.

“I’m sorry, Agent Barton, but I can’t give you a pass for this lecture,” he said quite smugly.

Clint just crooked his head.

“And I thought that the pass is gained by attendance,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Do you want to imply that I left this room at any time in your lecture?”

The lecturer opened his mouth to reply at that when Phil Coulson stepped in.

“Don’t worry, I’m quite sure that Agent Barton got the gist of your lecture,” he said. “Didn’t you, Agent Barton?”

“Of course, sir,” Clint answered, grinning. “After all, I’m always listening if someone explains the rules of a place!”

Nick Fury’s mouth twitched at that as if the director had to keep himself from laughing and Phil snorted.

“Of course you are, Agent,” he said amused. “And now run along and wreak havoc somewhere else!”

“Yes, sir, yes!” Clint answered, saluting before hurrying of to do exactly that.

xXxXxXxXxXx

IV.

The next time Ethan called, Clint wasn’t quite happy with him.

Well, He guessed that he had every right to not be happy with Ethan in the moment the man called.

Clint had been somewhere in Manhattan at that time. Actually, just seconds before the call, he had been standing on the rooftop of a building, his quiver empty but of the one arrow he could pull from the dead body next to him. A sole arrow that had been no use against the alien enemies who approached him while shooting their alien weapons at him.

So Clint had done the sensible thing: he had jumped of the building – hey, it had been just about seventy or eighty floors high, so nothing extraordinary high or so! And then he had used his sole arrow as a grapnel – he was definitely proud of his arrow ideas – to enter the building safely through one of the windows. Well, as safely as you could when you flew through a window into an office building at high speed.

In other words: Landing on the floor between the desks hurt like hell.

But that wasn’t all, because when he looked up, he was just fast enough to see his enemies entering the building as well.

“Shit!”

Of course, that had been the moment, Ethan decided to call. For a moment, Clint contemplated to not answer that call. He had better things to do right now, after all. But then, it might be the last time that he would ever be able to answer a call, so maybe…

Clint picked up the phone, inserting the call into his comm. unit.

“Truly, Ethan, now?” he asked, after taking the call.

“What do you mean ‘now’?” Ethan asked confused, and Clint rolled his eyes before pulling one of his knives. It might not be the best weapon against his current opponents, but it was still better than nothing.

“It’s kind of… not the right moment to ask me for a favour or whatever,” Clint answered, while dodging one of his approaching enemies. The alien slammed into the wall instead and Clint used one of the desks to bring it to its knees. With practiced ease he ripped out the cords of the computers and used them to try suffocating the aliens. It worked surprisingly well, considering that they were aliens and didn’t need earthly air to breath.

“What do you mean ‘it’s not the right moment’?” Ethan asked. “Do you know what’s happening here in Morocco? If we don’t stop this terrorist now, earth is done for!”

“Well, then he has to draw a number,” Clint answered annoyed. “I’m pretty sure that the Chitauri don’t plan on sharing…”

There was silence on the other side of the phone for a moment and Clint used that to kick one of his attackers in the knees, slice another ones throat and practically shove the next one out of the window.

“What are you mumbling about, Brandt?” Ethan finally asked confused. “And what the hell are you doing? You sound as if you were running a marathon!”

“Er… something like that,” Clint answered, while stealing one of the alien’s weapons and using it to shoot not only the owner but the rest of them as well.

“Are those shots?” Ethan asked in that moment concerned.

“Er… no?” Clint said, dodging one of the aliens and using his new toy to gut the next one. “Does it sound like it?”

“Not truly, but –“

“Listen, Ethan,” Clint interrupted him, while ducking behind one of the desks, and then edging to the window. “I’ve definitely no time for you right now. Whatever your terrorist does you –“

“Brandt! You’re the most logical guy I know! Something is fishy with the data we got and neither of us can pinpoint what exactly we’re missing! We _need_ you to look it over – now!”

“Like I said, not the right moment,” Clint said. The aliens were approaching him again and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold his position any longer. Well, there was still another out…

“Brandt!”

“Alright! Alright! Send the most important parts to my phone, I’ll look it through,” Clint finally said, and then added mumbling. “Somewhere between shooting aliens and searching arrows.”

And with that he jumped out of the window again – this time on one of the sleighs the aliens were driving.

“Thanks, Brandt,” Ethan said, then hesitated. “You… er… you didn’t just jump down from something, did you?”

Clint rolled his eyes inwardly and killed the driver and the rest of the sleigh crew.

“How did you come up with that idea?” He asked while searching for his arrows down on the streets. It wasn’t actually too difficult to find some dead bodies with arrows in it – Clint never missed, so finding an arrow without a body was out of question.

“Er… it sounded for a moment like that one time you had to jump in India…”

“Sure thing, Ethan. Next time you’ll tell me that I jump from skyscrapers and ride alien slights to battle,” Clint said while landing his new transportation near a place where a lot of aliens had died by his arrows.

Time to get some new munitions.

“Sure thing, Brandt,” Ethan laughed on the other side of the phone. “Want to add some weapons to your story for good measure – like a bow and arrow like Robin Hood?”

That stopped Clint in his tracks for a moment and he chuckled.

“Yeah, what an idiotic thought. What idiot would fight aliens with bow and arrow?” He said to Ethan while plucking the last of his arrows from one of the dead aliens. “Next thing you want to tell me that I’m working hand in hand with Tony Stark.”

Ethan just snorted.

“Just analyze the data before you return to your game or whatever you’re doing right now,” he said and Clint rolled his eyes while hurrying to the bridge. With practiced ease he balanced on one of the cars until a ride came by. He jumped up, climbed the sleigh and killed the next crew.

This time he crash-landed it on the next rooftop. He was just in time to see Tony vanishing into outer space with a missile.

“Damn,” he muttered. “That doesn’t look good.”

“What?” Ethan said and Clint shook his head.

“Forget it, Ethan,” he answered. “Call you later!”

And with that he ended the phone call. Just a minute later Ethan’s data arrived. Clint frowned at that, but ignored it until the aliens collapsed.

Then he opened the mail Ethan had send and looked through the data while also keeping an eye on the slowly closing portal and then on the falling Tony Stark.

Half an hour later, Manhattan was safe and Loki in custody.

The Avengers were on the way to shawarma.

Clint ended the analysis of the data he had been send and then called Ethan again.

“Alright, I’ve looked through it,” he said, ignoring the rest of the Avengers who looked at him oddly. “Let me tell you what I see…”

He was about to end the call when Ethan suddenly spoke up again.

“Brandt?” he said, sounding oddly serious.

“Hmm?”

“Where are you right now?”

Clint blinked at that.

“Huh? Why?” He asked.

“Because you joked something about aliens half an hour ago,” Ethan said. “Considering that just now news hit Europe about aliens in New York –“

Clint rolled his eyes at that.

“Honestly, Ethan,” he said. “Do I truly look like someone who decides to go fighting aliens on a whim?”

“No,” Ethan said while the other Avengers laughed at Clint in the back round.

“Thought so,” Clint answered. “And now leave me alone. I’ve still a lot of things to do today!” And with that, he ended the phone call.

It was Tony who spoke up first.

“Truly, Legolas,” he said snorting. “You definitely don’t look like someone who fights aliens – at all!”

And with that, the whole team dissolved into laughter – Clint one of them as well.

xXxXxXxXxXx

V.

The next time, Ethan called, Clint was actually at the IMF – or at least working for the IMF.

He had just left the Committee where the IMF had been officially dissolved. Not that Clint had contributed a lot to stop that from happening. He had his rules after all, William Brandt always followed the rules if he could, and the rules were quite clear what to say if a situation like that arose – and of course Clint just loved to see their faces while he repeated his sentence over and over again: _“I can neither confirm nor deny details of any operation without the Secretary’s approval.”_ Clint thought the sentence especially funny considering that he had been doing the Secretary’s work since the last one had been killed over six month ago.

Not that Clint was in any way or form inclined to say anything about his time with Ethan Hunt’s team while the Ghost Protocols had been active.

The moment he had left the Committee, Ethan called.

“ _This is Brandt_ ,” Clint said, using a phrase he normally didn’t use because of the trouble with his double identity.

 _“Go secure_ ,” Ethan’s voice said and Clint did – he loved that part of IMF. It was simply cool to act all spy-like – something he regretfully wasn’t allowed at SHIELD.

The moment Clint had confirmed that the line was secure, Ethan started to fill him in into his intel about the Syndicate. So Clint listened until Ethan finally run out of words, before he simply stated, “ _I can’t do that,”_ while wondering if it was his Brandt part – the one that needed to know everything – or his Barton part – the one always searching for mayhem and chaos – that hadn’t stopped Ethan before the man had said everything he could.

For a moment or two Clint even toyed with the idea of following Ethan undercover – hey, he hadn’t done some deep cover missions in months now! – but then he simply settled on explaining Ethan what happened.

“ _The Committee has shut us down. Operations have been handed over to the CIA. There’s no more IMF. I’ve been ordered to bring everyone in,”_ not that he would do that. Alright, he would bring in the most of them – but definitely not Ethan.

Clint’s sense for chaos and mayhem wouldn’t allow it.

So Clint settled on a more… Clint-like response in the end.

 _“This man you saw, can you find him?”_ he had asked Ethan, and when the man had confirmed it, Clint couldn’t resist to add, “this may very well be our last mission, Ethan. Make it count.”

And then, of course, he ended the phone call before Ethan could reply or the CIA Director Hunley saw him on the phone – not that that ended the CIA Director’s suspicions. But the man was playing with the wrong man.

“ _Where is Hunt?”_

“ _I don’t know_ ,” Clint answered gleefully – not that anyone would see that expression on his face or hear it in his voice…

The Director countered anyway with the words, “ _don’t lie to me, Brandt_!” And for a second – just a second, Clint was after all, not suicidal! – he considered to follow the order of ‘his’ new director. He wondered how Fury would react if Clint would answer something akin to “if I’m not allowed to lie to you, you should call me Barton, because that’s my actual name,” to the CIA Director’s exclamation.

Instead he settled on the next best thing in the end: “ _I have no way of contacting him. He’s deep cover. Last I heard, he’s tracking the Syndicate.”_ All the while wondering if he himself could consider himself deep cover as well – after all, there was no way he would tell the CIA Director that he was actually part of a ghost agency like SHIELD. The man didn’t even believe that the Syndicate was real – he would get a heart attack if he would find out that SHIELD was!

“Yep, definitely deep cover,” Clint thought amused at that thought before starting to wreak havoc at CIA headquarters for the next six months – not that anybody ever connected well-educated, serious Chief Analyst William Brandt to the pranks that every CIA agent and especially the Director had to suffer under. Instead him, they suspected poor Benji.

Clint had lots of fun.

“ _Welcome to the CIA”_ – indeed.

xXxXxXxXxXx

\+ One

It was funny, how circumstances could change the opinion of men, Clint mused while watching Director Hunley talking in favour for the return of the IMF.

The Committee listened to Hunley’s fictional reasons for dissolving the IMF all those months ago and his reasons for the return of the IMF now that the danger had been averted before turning their eyes on Clint and asking for his opinion.

For a moment, Clint considered what to say, then he said, inwardly grinning: “I can neither confirm nor deny details of any operation without the Secretary’s approval.”

He simply loved that sentence. Regretfully, he guessed, it would be the last time he would be able to say it for a long while now if not forever.

They left the Committee room not even ten minutes later, side by side, the deep cover SHIELD agent and the CIA Director.

Clint just waited long enough to reach the point the Director had back then welcomed him to the CIA, before saying his own welcome: “Welcome to the IMF – Mr. Secretary!”

He grinned at the man, and the man returned the grin with a slight smile.

In that moment, his phone rung.

Clint blinked, then pulled it out of his suit jacket and answered it.

“Yeah?”

“Put me on speaker, Agent Barton,” Director Fury said. “I heard IMF has a new Secretary. I guess it’s time to introduce myself to him…”

“As you wish, sir,” Clint answered before turning to the new Secretary. “There’s someone who wants to speak with you, sir.”

The new Secretary’s eyebrow raised at that.

“And who is it?”

Clint simply put Fury on speaker.

“You’re on speaker, now, Boss-man,” he declared.

“Thank you, Agent Brandt,” Fury replied, before speaking to the new Secretary. “Welcome to the IMF, Mr. Secretary,” he said, echoing Clint’s words from before to Clint’s amusement.

“I am Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, partner-agency of the IMF,” Fury continued, and the Secretary’s eyes widened.

“SHIELD – as in the ghost agency SHIELD?” he asked, surprise clearly visible on his face.

“Of course SHIELD as in the ghost agency,” Fury answered annoyed. “What else?”

Then he sighed.

“Anyway, back to the reason why I’m calling,” he finally said. “Now, that IMF is secure again – will you at least consider returning my agent to me? I’m a little bit short-handed without him right now…”

Clint snickered at that.

“And I bet that the Black Widow is driving you crazy,” he added gleefully. “Right, Boss-man?”

Fury grunted at that.

“Shut it, Agent Brandt!” He said. “I’m talking with your second boss.”

“Shutting up now, sir,” Clint answered grinning. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not right nevertheless!”

“Stop!” That was the Secretary. “What does he mean ‘his agent’?!”

Clint just turned to the Secretary, his eyes huge and innocent.

“Why, didn’t you know, Mr. Secretary, that I’m just loaned by the IMF from SHIELD?” He asked. “And I thought the CIA knows everything!”

The Secretary groaned.

“Is there anything else that I’m missing, Agent Brandt?” he finally asked.

Clint thought about that.

“Agent Brandt, don’t you dare –“

And maybe it was Fury’s threat that decided it in the end, maybe it was just Clint’s sense of mayhem and chaos or it was Clint’s exposure to Tony Stark – whatever it was, Clint couldn’t stop himself.

“Actually, just the tiny information of me being part of the Avengers, but nothing big, world-changing, truly!”

Oh, how he loved the groan at the other end of the phone and the gawking expression of the new Secretary.

“Yes, that was definitely worth it,” Clint muttered to himself grinning while shooting a photo of the face of his new sometimes-boss. “So worth it! Now I just have to send it to Benji…”


End file.
